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☆ Leaked Recording of U.A.E. Officials Reveals the Nation’s Concern Over Its Public Image
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-01 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | More About Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When the United Arab Emirates hosts this year’s United Nations climate summit, it will elevate the Gulf nation’s global profile. But the conference is also inviting scrutiny of the Emirates’ record on human rights as well as its position as a leading oil producer. A leaked recording of a February meeting between representatives from the United Arab Emirates and summit organizers provides a candid look at their efforts to respond to the criticism. It also highlights the authoritarian state’s focus on its image, managed through contracts with public relations companies, lobbyists and social media specialists around the world. The Times verified the recording with the person who made it, who asked to remain anonymous out of concerns about retaliation.

Organizations: United Arab Emirates, Emirates, United Arab, Centre, Climate, The New York Times, Times Locations: United Nations, United Arab Emirates, London

☆ Maui Sued Big Oil in 2020, Citing Fire Risks and More
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-18 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | More About Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

And while lawsuits like the one filed by Maui have been delayed by procedural issues, the fires could be an important part of the county’s claim for damages should the case go to trial, legal experts said. Maui’s arguments are also likely to resonate with a local jury. And while that attribution can take time, scientists have pointed to Hawaii’s declining average rainfall as well as drought, hurricane winds and other conditions linked to climate change as factors that fueled the Maui fire. The fossil fuel industry has tried to move the Maui and other climate cases to federal court, where it hoped for better outcomes. But the U.S. Supreme Court decided last year that they should remain in state courts.

Persons: “, ”, Richard Wallsgrove, it’s Organizations: Environmental, University of Hawaii, Supreme Locations: Maui, Hawaii, Manoa, U.S

☆ It’s Official: Stores Can No Longer Sell Most Incandescent Lights
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | More About Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

And a few specialized kinds of incandescent bulbs — like those that go inside ovens, and bug lights — are exempt. But most if not all other incandescents will struggle to meet the new efficiency standards, and the same goes for a more recent generation of halogen lights. “Going from an incandescent to an LED is like replacing a car that gets 25 miles per gallon with another one that gets 130 m.p.g.,” he said. With the new rules in place, the Department of Energy expects Americans to collectively save nearly $3 billion a year on their utility bills. In the past, a knock on LEDs was that they were more expensive to buy, but prices for LED bulbs have fallen rapidly to near parity with incandescents.

Persons: ”, Lucas Davis, “ Organizations: “ Energy, Haas School of Business, University of California, Department of Energy, Research, Energy Department Locations: Berkeley

☆ 101°F in the Ocean Off Florida: Was It a World Record?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-26 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | More About Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The reading from a buoy off Florida this week was stunning: 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit, or just over 38 Celsius, a possible world record for sea surface temperatures and a stark indication of the brutal marine heat wave that’s threatening the region’s sea life. But determining whether that reading was in fact a world record is complicated. The data was consistent with high water temperatures seen in the area, Florida Bay, between the southern end of the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys, in recent weeks, she said. Then, there’s the fact that there is no official keeper of ocean temperature records. The World Meteorological Organization tracks land surface temperature records, but not ones set at sea.

Persons: Allyson Gantt Organizations: National Park Service, Florida, World Meteorological Organization Locations: Florida, Florida Bay

☆ Leaks Can Make Natural Gas as Bad as Coal for Climate, Study Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Natural gas, long seen as a cleaner alternative to coal and an important tool in the fight to slow global warming, can be just as harmful to the climate, a new study has concluded, unless companies can all but eliminate the leaks that plague its use. It takes as little as 0.2 percent of gas to leak to make natural gas as big a driver of climate change as coal, the study found. That’s a tiny margin of error for a gas that is notorious for leaking from drill sites, processing plants and the pipes that transport it into power stations or homes and kitchens. The bottom line: If gas leaks, even a little, “it’s as bad as coal,” said Deborah Gordon, the lead researcher and an environmental policy expert at Brown University and at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on clean energy. “It can’t be considered a good bridge, or substitute.”The peer-reviewed study, which also involved researchers from Harvard and Duke Universities and NASA and is set to be published next week in the journal Environmental Research Letters, adds to a substantial body of research that has poked holes in the idea that natural gas is a suitable transitional fuel to a future powered entirely by renewables, like solar and wind.

Persons: it’s, ”, Deborah Gordon Organizations: Brown University, Rocky Mountain Institute, Harvard, Duke Universities, NASA

☆ Study Compares Gas Stove Pollution to Secondhand Cigarette Smoke
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The NewsUsing a single gas-stove burner can raise indoor concentrations of benzene, which is linked to cancer risk, to above what’s found in secondhand tobacco smoke and even to levels that have prompted local investigations when detected outdoors, according to a new study. For the peer-reviewed study, researchers at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability measured benzene emissions from stoves at 87 homes in California and Colorado and found that natural gas and propane stoves emitted benzene that frequently reached indoor concentrations above health benchmarks set by the World Health Organization and other public agencies. In about a third of the homes, a single gas burner on high or an oven set to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes raised benzene levels above the upper range of indoor concentrations seen in secondhand tobacco smoke, the researchers found. They noted that similar concentrations, when identified in 2020 near schools in Greater Los Angeles and the Colorado Front Range, led to investigations by the authorities there.

Persons: what’s Organizations: Stanford’s Doerr, Sustainability, World Health Organization Locations: California, Colorado, Greater Los Angeles

☆ Testing New York Apartments: How Dirty Is That Gas Stove, Really?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Every morning, as millions of Americans light up the gas stoves in their kitchens to heat some coffee or griddle their hash browns, they aren’t just sending delicious breakfast smells wafting through their homes. The blue flames also emit harmful pollutants like nitrogen dioxides, as well as planet-warming gases. So a team of scientists from Stanford recently embarked on a testing tour of New York City apartments to better understand the extent of the pollution and how it flows from room to room in people’s real homes. Concerns over the health and climate effects of gas-burning stoves have already prompted some cities and states to seek to phase out natural gas connections in new buildings, and the federal government has also moved to strengthen efficiency standards for gas stoves. Last week in Washington, Republicans convened a hearing of the House Oversight Committee “examining the Biden administration’s regulatory assault on Americans’ gas stoves.”

☆ Canada’s Wildfires Have Been Disrupting Lives. Now, Oil and Gas Take a Hit.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The damage to oil and gas production was likely to significantly surpass current tallies, Thomas Liles, vice president of Rystad’s upstream research, said in a note. The disruptions from the fires in Canada, a major oil- and gas-producing nation, have helped push oil prices higher. Chevron said it had shut down all production at its Kaybob Duvernay oil and gas fields in central Alberta. Paramount temporarily shuttered a natural gas processing plant along with production in several gas fields, the company said in its latest update on Sunday. It isn’t the first time Canada’s oil and gas fields have been hit by fires, and the shutdowns, for now, affect a small proportion of the country’s total oil and gas output.

☆ Price to Plug Old Wells in Gulf of Mexico? $30 Billion, Study Says.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Hiroko Tabuchi | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That raises risks that oil and other pollutants will leak into the ocean and travel to shore and smother wetlands, particularly sensitive salt marshes along the northern Gulf Coast. Orphaned oil and gas wells are a big issue onshore, too. You can’t just drive a truck up to it.”Possible SolutionsThe $1 trillion infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law in 2021 sets aside $4.7 billion to plug orphaned wells, both onshore and off. That’s a sizable sum, but not nearly enough to cover the backlog of orphaned wells. Eighty-seven percent of wells under federal jurisdiction were once owned by one of the supermajors, many of which have recently booked record profits.

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